


Teen Wolf, Season 2, Episode 12, Master Plan

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s02e12 Master Plan, Meta, Nonfiction, Season Finale, Season/Series 02, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 02:02:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16231931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.





	Teen Wolf, Season 2, Episode 12, Master Plan

Open to a venom-dripping, supposedly dead Jackson being loaded into an ambulance.

An EMT thanks Melissa, but for some reason, Melissa’s spidey-senses go off. She insists she’ll come to the hospital with them.

It’s probably a good thing, because, this EMT is unbelievably shady. I’m not sure how to find her on IMDB, but the actress does good in this small scene.

Meanwhile, a hunter throws Stiles in the Argent basement. He discovers Erica and Boyd gagged and restrained.

At school, Sheriff S is talking to Scott and Isaac. He has to go to the hospital to try to figure out what happened with Jackson, and he has an APB out for Stiles. Roscoe is still in the parking lot.

Ashby does awesome here with how confused, subtly terrified, and trying his best to stay together Sheriff S is.

Isaac softly assures Sheriff S, if Stiles contacts them or they see Stiles, they’ll call Sheriff S.

Sharman does great in this role. He’s tall, but Isaac is often scrunched up. Isaac can be cocky and violent, but often, there’s a softness to the character. He’s often nervous, he tries to please the people he cares about, and whenever he’s kind, it often comes from a place of empathy with no condescension.

Here, Scott suggests Stiles is just freaked out from the attention, and he promises they’ll find him. I don’t know if he’s worried about Stiles or not, but he’s subtly condescending towards the sheriff’s pain. No one is asking or expecting him to the hero.

Isaac, on the other, gives actual reassurance by giving a reasonable promise.

Sheriff S leaves, and Coach comes over. Despite not expressing worry for Stiles and/or sadness over Jackson, he makes it clear he genuinely cares about his students. Except Greenberg, of course.

I believe Coach did express the sentiment he cares about his students, but I doubt it was solely about Scott needing to get his grades up so that he can play next season.

After everyone leaves, Scott tears the door off Stiles’s locker as opposed to just yanking the much easier to replace lock off. I’m not sure this is a lie, but either way, it doesn’t make Scott look good. I’m actually not sure Scott wouldn’t have Stiles’s combination, though, and if he did this instead of using it-

Scott wants to find Stiles by scent, and Isaac is miffed to get a shoe. Heh.

Then, Derek and Peter appear.

Scott’s reaction is, “Holy sh-”

“Shh,” Stiles says to the betas. Hah!

Not realising the electricity is in play, he immediately tries to free Erica despite her non-verbal attempts to warn him.

Gerard appears, and he beats Stiles up.

The stated reason is Gerard wants to send a warning/lure Scott to him, but I’ve never bought this, and thus, I struggle to understood what the point of this scene is.

Gerard being evil and Stiles caring for Erica and Boyd have both already been established. It isn’t out-of-character for Gerard to kidnap and beat up a (supposed) human, and it’s not out-of-character for Stiles to leave the betas right now or not immediately tell Scott once he was free. Stiles’s later relationship with Allison isn’t inconsistent with this happening.

Something, however, is missing. It’s never clear why Gerard would do this, and then, let Stiles go.

There are two main narrators: Scott and Chris. They’re both in the car with Alec.

As I’ve said before, earlier in the season, Chris clearly left for a bathroom break/to get some snacks/change a tire/etc. There are episodes in later seasons where I’m convinced Scott and Chris are in mutual agreement to lie to Alec about certain things.

Then, there’s a question of if some of the show is being told after Alec meets the others and, if so, by which ones.

Here, in Scott’s case, I don’t think Scott is lying in his narration. Scott occasionally fits the liar archetype, but unreliable narration doesn’t always mean a character is lying. No matter how truthful, any non-omniscient narrator is unreliable to some degree, and even omniscient ones can have agendas or just flat-out be liars.

If Stiles lied to Scott or implied things that caused Scott to come to this conclusion, and Scott believed him, then, Scott is simply mistaken.

The question is: Is Chris being truthful? Did he edit himself out of whatever went down? Is he repeating what Gerard or Stiles told him?

Back in the locker room, Scott isn’t unreasonable in demanding, “What the hell is this?”

Derek brings up Scott talking to Gerard last episode, and normally, I’d be completely on his side with that, but uh, Scott’s seeing a man whose been dead for, at least, a couple of weeks standing there not dead.

Scott brings up Gerard threatening Melissa.

Yes, and this is something he should have brought up numerous episodes ago.

Peter endears himself to no one by making a comment about Melissa’s beauty.

Both the character and actress are pretty, and I’d never argue with anyone who used the term “gorgeous”, but not only is this not the time, it’s extra-creepy considering he manipulated her feelings in an attempt to non-consensually bite her as a means to get control over her teenage son.

“Who is he,” Isaac asks.

“That’s Peter, Derek’s uncle. A little while back, he tried to kill us all, and then, we set him on fire, and Derek slashed his throat.”

Holding up a hand, Peter greets, “Hi.”

“Good to know,” is Isaac’s quiet response. Heh.

Derek informs them Peter knows how to stop and possibly save Jackson, and Isaac brings up the fact Jackson’s dead.

Peter is visibly not happy, and Isaac asks why this isn’t being taken as good news. Peter explains that Gerard wanted Jackson dead for some reason. This isn’t a victory for them, this is just another stepping stone in Gerard’s plan.

Over at the Argent house, Chris starts to knock open on Allison’s opened door, but he’s stopped by the sight of Gerard and Allison. I imagine it reminds him of Gerard and Kate. They kept him out of things, too.

He didn’t blame Gerard for how Kate turned out, but under Gerard, he’s starting to see Allison turn out just like her.

Chris brings up the lights flickering from Stiles trying to free the betas, and Gerard suggests it was probably just one of their “guests” making themselves “comfortable”. He suggests Allison try to get some sleep, but when he starts to leave, Chris blocks his path. He wants to know what happened at the game.

Gerard says they won, and when Chris says he meant in regards to Jackson, Gerard answers, “So did I.”

He leaves, and Chris makes it clear he wants Allison to step aside.

He has his chance, and he abdicated responsibility. It’s too late for a heart-to-heart, but there are options. Yet, he refuses to take them.

Instead, he refers to Jackson as one of her friends. “One of your friends is dead.”

She doesn’t bother correcting him or bringing up the fact he tried numerous times to kill Jackson himself. Just like Kate, she’s realised he’s soft and unreliable. In addition, she finds him hypocritical.

For all he goes on about the code, he turned her into a prisoner and abused her when she dated a werewolf, he tried to find her vulnerable friend when it was possible said friend would be a werewolf and tried to make her a spy against said friend, and he lied to her about bringing in Jackson alive. He let her mother abuse her, too, and then, he helped her mother kill herself, because, being a werewolf was a fate worse than death.

Now, she’s fighting the monsters. She’s doing what he, her mom, and Gerard have been doing for years. She’s not going to go back to being his innocent little girl, the one he turned against once she fundamentally disagreed with him, again.

She calls him on his hypocrisy, and both Reed and Bourne do fabulously with this scene. Allison is in so much pain and so angry, and despite Chris being so lost and confused at how it came to all this, he finally realises Gerard isn’t above using his family to achieve his goals, regardless of the cost to them.

He ends up destroying her crossbow, but it’s an impotent gesture. She has plenty of others. She’s too angry about much bigger things to truly care. All he’s done is show himself to be petty when called out, and this isn’t some big surprise.

In the hospital, Melissa scrapes up some kanima venom, and then, starts to unzip the body bag containing Jackson.

Over at the S household, Stiles arrives, and he lies some boys from the other team beat him up. At first, Sheriff S is angry and ready to spring into action, but when Stiles emotionally pleads with him to let it go, Sheriff S realises Stiles might be lying.

Also realising, no matter how much he doesn’t like, Stiles isn’t going to let him go after whoever did hurt him, he simply hugs his son tight.

Meanwhile, at the Hale house, Scott gets a text about Stiles being found. Peter withdraws a laptop.

Then, Scott gets a call from Melissa, and it’s shown a gooey cocoon has started to surround Jackson.

Back at the S household, Lydia has come to visit Stiles. Before he opens the door, as someone pointed out, he’s lying on the bruised side of his face.

She comes in, and he asks how she’s doing. She tearfully says, “They won’t let me see him.” Digging out the Whittemore house key, she continues she’s supposed to give him something, as he kept asking for it back.

Roden does brilliantly here with Lydia’s emotional devastation. For all I don’t like Lydia/Jackson or Stiles’s crush on Lydia, it’s never been due to the acting.

At the hospital, Isaac and Scott have arrived, and when K-Jackson starts to move, the two werewolves make the human re-zip the body bag.

Down in the Argent basement, Chris gives a speech to the crying, terrified betas that hints at his regret and empathy. Then, he I think turns off the electricity before leaving, but I could be wrong. After he leaves, there’s still some electricity shown sparking. I don’t know if this was it shutting down or to show it was still on.

Back at S household, Stiles offers Lydia toilet paper in lieu of tissues, and I remember someone tweeted Jeff Davis a screenshot showing there were tissues in Stiles’s room.

For some reason, she was holding his phone, and she tells him he has 17 missed messages from Scott.

When Stiles was kidnapped, did he somehow find out about Scott working with Gerard?

Getting up, she goes over to where a box containing a TV, a Macy’s bag, and women’s jewellery are all piled together.

He wasn’t sure what to get her for her birthday, and so, he bought a selection so that he could decide at home. Ugh.

Lydia’s just like, ‘Okay, no idea how to react, but you know, I’m still incredibly emotionally fragile, and he’s the only one I’ve actually been able to talk to in a long time, so, I’m gonna stay.’

Then, either she or he gets a text. The phone’s in her hand, but I don’t know if it’s hers or his. Either way, she declares he’s gonna want to read it.

At the Hale house, Derek is talking to Scott over the phone, and Peter’s looking up kanimas on the laptop. When Derek hangs up, Peter reads that K-Jackson is in his beta state right now. The image of the next stage isn’t shown, but according to Derek, “That has wings!”

Derek calls Scott back, and looking at the wiggling body bag, Scott expresses doubts out there being enough time to bring K-Jackson to them.

Peter discovers someone made an animation of the kanima’s next form, and for someone who mocked Derek’s technological ineptitude, he obviously hasn’t been introduced to the concept of shmuck bait yet. Expressing the opinion the animation might make it less scary, he clicks on it, and of course, he promptly slams the laptop shut. “Nope, not at all.”

Over at the Argent house, Gerard wakes Allison up.

At the hospital, Isaac and Scott are trying to sneak the body bag out, and in the parking lot, they’re caught by Chris.

Meanwhile, Peter insists they need Lydia, but Derek is insistent on killing Jackson if presented with the chance.

Back in the parking lot, Scott notes Chris is alone.

“More than you know.”

Great line, but also, a large part of it is Chris’s own fault.

Chris makes it clear he’s going to help, and when Scott assumes he means with Jackson, Chris corrects that they have a different common enemy.

He doesn’t know for sure what Gerard’s endgame is, but the price for letting him obtain it is too high.

Back in Stiles’s room, Lydia only understands a little about the supernatural, but she wants to do anything she can to help Jackson. Stiles yells at her about how her death would affect other people, and it’s clear some of this is also about the grief over his mother’s illness and death.

She leaves.

In the parking lot, Chris talks about how Gerard has twisted his way into Allison’s head, and it’s made clear he now realises Gerard corrupted Kate. He couldn’t save his sister or his wife, but he’s determined to save Allison.

They drive off in his car with K-Jackson in tow.

At the S household, Sheriff S is supportive without prying of his son’s issues, and he shows his pride at Stiles helping the team win.

Somewhere, Chris stops the car, and running on all fours, Derek does gymnastics.

Nearby, an unseen Peter rolls his eyes and makes a snide comment about the dramatics.

He learned it from you, Peter.

Inside wherever they are, Scott asks where Peter and Lydia are.

Peter is watching out-of-sight.

Ignoring the question, Derek makes it clear he’s going to kill Jackson, and he and Scott argue.

Chris protests. He’s realised Gerard is manipulative and willing to prioritise his goals above his family, but he can’t fully believe Gerard is so outside the code as they’re both saying. “My father wouldn’t let a rabid dog live.”

There’s a chance Chris’s friend could have been contained until sunrise, but a bullet was put through his head. Chris claims he did it, but I’ve always believed it was Gerard.

Speaking of, Gerard has arrived.

Derek tries to claw K-Jackson, but K-Jackson stops him.

A lurking Allison shoots Isaac with her crossbow.

Scott tries to get Isaac to safety, and Chris shoots K-Jackson numerous times.

When the gun’s taken, he runs and withdraws a knife. Interestingly, Peter is shown during this. I’m not sure what his feelings towards Chris are, but I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of history there.

The three werewolves get ready to fight K-Jackson, and the theme music plays. I think it played in a scene during Fury, too, but I’m not sure. I’m not rewatching that episode right now.

During this, Derek is clawed, and when Isaac tries to get to him, Allison stabs him multiple times with her Chinese ring daggers. Then, readying them, she starts to advance on Derek.

Kate’s girl is going to finish what Kate started.

Except, just like Kate, she’s held hostage by the throat.

“Not yet, sweetheart.”

It’s never been made clear if Gerard was involved with the fire, but if he wasn’t, it wasn’t something he disapproved of. He made Kate, and Kate ended up dying for her actions.

It’s revealed Gerard has cancer, and he wants the alpha bite.

“You monster,” Chris says.

“Not yet,” Gerard replies.

In a horrible moment, Scott forces the paralysed but shifted Derek to bite Gerard.

If Gerard had ambushed him with the threat on Allison’s life, it might be more understandable.

In most cases, if a person threatens to do something bad if I don’t comply, I won’t comply. If someone gets hurt due to them doing the bad thing, that’s on them for making the choice to do the bad thing. However, if someone said, ‘violate this person, or the most important person in the world to you dies,’ and I believed they could and would kill said person, I honestly don’t know what I’d do.

This isn’t the case here.

He reveals himself he knew Gerard has cancer. He admits, together, he and Deaton figured out Gerard was after the alpha bite, and his intention was to get Derek to bite a mountain-ash filled Gerard.

He’s been working with Gerard to ensure this happened. Instead of telling Stiles and Allison and possibly Derek and/or Chris about Gerard, he worked with Deaton to do this.

If the plan had just been to deny Gerard medicine, then, giving him sugar pills would have been far easier than creating mountain ash pills, and again, with this being fiction, I would have been fine with that.

He does help save Allison’s life here, but just like Gerard contributed to Kate having her neck clawed out, he contributed to Allison being put in such a situation in the first place. What Victoria did was either on her or on whoever bit her. Him and Allison dating isn’t responsible for the choices the others made it response to them doing so. Him planning all this with Deaton instead of letting her know what her grandfather was up to does make her being in this situation largely on him.

At first, Gerard is triumphant, but then, his bite bleeds black.

Derek asks why Scott didn’t tell him, and in another horrible moment, Scott’s response to the victim he just violated is that him joining Derek’s pack was never real.

Derek’s often been misguided in how he showed it, but he truly cared for Scott. He wanted to protect him. Scott hurt and inconvenienced him numerous times, but whenever Scott needed him, he did try to be there for him.

Regaining consciousness, Gerard orders K-Jackson to kill them all.

So, not only was Scott’s plan cruel and contributed to Allison being put in a chokehold, but it could have ended with him and everyone else dead.

Except, he loses consciousness again, K-Jackson lets go of Allison, she elbows him and ducks away, and then, it’s Roscoe, Stiles, and Lydia to the rescue. Stiles hits K-Jackson with Roscoe, and getting out, Lydia holds out the key.

There’s a flashback to her and Jackson in bed, and for once in 24 something episodes, they come across as a sweet, normal couple.

Partially shifting back to human, he steps back. When he nods to Derek, Derek and Peter claw him.

Holding him, she answers the half-formed question he asks with: Yes, she still loves him.

Watching, Allison finally feels sympathy for her friend again, and her fingers link through Scott’s.

Lydia lowers Jackson onto the ground, and the last of his scales disappears.

They realise Gerard’s gone.

I waver between whether Gerard died here or not. It’s possible his later appearances were made up by Chris and Scott for some reason, but then, I really like the idea of Kate being the one who finally kills him.

Then, blue-eyed werewolf Jackson rises.

Later, in Allison’s room, she expresses regret, and in a neat bit of acting, nothing is said about Erica and Boyd, but there’s a moment that I’ve always interpreted as Allison thinking about them. She’s breaks up with Scott, but refusing to respect her wishes, he insists on treating this as if they’re just agreeing to take a break.

As he leaves, Chris comes in. Sitting down, he holds her.

He’ll never be her father again, but hopefully, he can be someone she can truly count on now.

In the woods, Erica’s the faster runner, but she refuses to leave Boyd behind when he needs to catch his breath.

Faceless werewolves surround them.

During the day, Deaton is looking at blood on the ground, and Morrell comes up to him. She says something about him leaving retirement, and he makes it clear he’s never been retired.

At the Hale house, Isaac, Derek, and Peter discover the sign of the alpha pack on the door.

The last scene is of Scott and Stiles practising lacrosse. Scott is a little bummed about losing everything (lacrosse, popularity, and girlfriend), and he’s dismissive when Stiles reminds him he still has Stiles.

Interestingly, there are some stripes on Stiles’s shirt. Is this foreshadowing his possession in season 3?

Despite Stiles repeatedly ordering him not to use his wolf powers to cheat, Scott does anyway.

Fin.


End file.
